The ups, downs, and occasional sideways bits of trying to be mortgage free

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  • Divide everything I say by 3 and you'll be close enough: our average national wage is 3 times yours, so it all evens out. Love the chicken leg idea, thank you!

    The second coop is FINISHED thank you for asking! I am dithering about whether to buy baby chicks (super adorable, but require me to also buy a heat lamp. But SUPER ADORABLE) or older ones that already have their feathers and are hardier.

    Yesterday's NSD achieved. My hairdresser unexpectedly quit, so today will be an NSD for me as well. Not for DH, though, who's just paid a bunch of school costs and a mixer tap.

    I'm more excited about the tap than a normal person would consider reasonable: our 1940s bathroom just has a pedestal sink at the moment, and it's cluttered and ugly, so DH decided to make us a vanity. He had some old jarrah (hardwood, reddish, SUPER expensive these days but back when our house was built, it was cheap and readily available so this was old sleepers from a fence we pulled out), an amazing hand painted sink that my Mum bought from an artisan market a decade ago and sold on to us cheaply, and some salvaged vintage tiles to inset into the doors.

    So he's made this astounding piece of furniture for about $750 all up which I think we could conservatively sell for about $4K. It's way too nice for this house!
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • Frudd
    Frudd Posts: 53 Forumite
    Flog it and buy one from Ikea then!
    £0/£2017 extra income :(
    £1070 credit card
  • I was tempted when I saw it but I think I'm going to be indulgent and enjoy the fruits of DH's labour.

    And talking of DH - he sold a painting on the weekend! Oil painting is his hobby, and it's not a cheap hobby either but it's a lot better than gambling or car restoration or buying top-of-the-line bicycles like half his workmates. Anyway, this is only the second painting he's sold, and he bumped up the price on this one so after the commission's taken out he'll get almost $500. Along with his leftover birthday gift vouchers, that should make his hobby free for the rest of the year, I think. :T:T And of course he's terribly pleased with himself, which is nice to see.

    Spendy weekend, but all thoughtful stuff. Found a ceramic water dispenser thing at a secondhand shop for $25, so I can try my hand at brewing kombucha (which costs a fortune in the shops and is basically free to make: just tea and sugar), and I bought a heat lamp and supplies for incoming baby chicks, which the man in the shop said would be freshly hatched on Friday: stay tuned for Adorableness. :easter: <--best baby chick smilie I could find!

    (I did also let DD2 buy an enormous teddy bear she found in the secondhand shop for $4. But you should have seen her big puppy dog eyes! :rotfl: )
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • I'm in a right grump today.

    I hate selling cars. I finally listed my old banger, forgetting that it needed some work done by a mechanic (all little things, but they'll make a huge difference to the sale, like the spare tyre is currently sitting in the boot because it needs reattaching under the chassis), and it was a long weekend so I couldn't take it in. Finally at the mechanic's now, but someone's coming to see it at 5 (postponed from yesterday) and just praying that it'll work. And it's been under a cover for 3 months and smells damp and fusty.

    And I just spent 3 hours at the hairdresser to fix a bad dye job, and they fixed it, but now it looks drab and boring. I should know better, I really should, but every time I go into the hairdresser I convince myself it'll be like Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors, and then in a shock plot twist, it never is. I was stripping out dark colours to tone greys, so now it's a very sensible darkish-ashey-blondey-I-just-fell-asleep-typing-the-description colour. Booo.

    AND while I was at the hairdresser DH rings to tell me that he tried to make some purchases from an account that doesn't let you make purchases from it and got charged $250 in late fees and maybe another $125. It's the 14th of a long month and I've just wiped out every cent of spending, fun or savings money we had to cover it. Boooooooooo.

    Also I haven't run in ages because it's too hot and I'm too fat and tired to think about squeezing into exercise gear and hefting myself along the street. And in sum I'm going to go eat worms.

    Yours in grumpitude, AE.
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • I sold the car!!!:j:j

    I was so stressed about it I can't even tell you. It's been under a plastic cover for three months and it smelt musty and just bleurgh. But the first person who came to see it liked it, and offered me what I was hoping for (he was definitely assuming I'd haggle upwards, in fact, but I'm happy if he is), and that's a nice $2800 to put in the bank. Given that we were down to coins for spending money until April, it's great timing. Think I might sock some in the savings, since I haven't managed to budget any savings for the past two months, and give us each a bit of pocket money!

    Tomorrow's looking frantic, with someone coming over to borrow an old gaming console from us and a business meeting, and somewhere in there I was going to try and make HM paneer...

    Things to do tomorrow
    1. Hang out laundry while the sunshine holds
    2. Bank car cash!
    3. Make paneer or, failing that, buy paneer
    4. Make bread
    When am I going to actually work, I wonder.
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • Another weekend over and things plodding along nicely. I took the DDs to pick out some baby chicks on Friday, having finally finished all the brooders and things (they needed a small indoor brooder for the first few weeks before they go into the grow-out coop I constructed last month). I had in mind that we'd give them nice literary names, like Jane, Lizzie, Mary, Kitty, Lydia and Charlotte. But the DDs had their way, and we're the proud owners of:

    (DD1): Snowy, Moana and Poddledonk
    (DD2): Hey-Hey, Flap-Flap and Peck-Peck

    I can't really tell any of them apart anyway, but they seem very content cheeping away. The kitten is extremely frustrated at the situation: he can sit on top of the brooder and watch them, but no matter how hard he tries he can't...quite...reach... and thank goodness for that!

    All in all, the chicks + equipment cost me $90, which works out about the same as just buying some point-of-lay pullets, but this way I can re-use the equipment for new batches. And they're so cute!

    In between pay days and bills, so nothing financial to report.
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • Frudd
    Frudd Posts: 53 Forumite
    [QUOTE
    (DD1): Snowy, Moana and Poddledonk
    (DD2): Hey-Hey, Flap-Flap and Peck-Peck

    [/QUOTE]

    Good, solid names there
    £0/£2017 extra income :(
    £1070 credit card
  • I picture them as fully grown hens, waddling around the back garden in all their dignity and still being called Peck-peck and Flap-flap!

    Went to Costco with my Mum yesterday, which is a palaver because by the time I pick her up (her disabilities mean she can't drive far) it's over an hour's round trip, and of course I have to lift and put away all of her groceries as well as mine.

    It was good, though. I went with the very honourable intention of just buying some frozen berries and my favourite hot sauce, and ended up spending $160 on...stuff. A 3kg packet of mince, approximately eleventy billion toilet rolls, that sort of thing. And then I splashed out on a coffee and a bottle of nail polish, because that's the kind of devil-may-care, spendthrift person I am.

    Am currently running Classic YNAB and nYNAB simultaneously to test out the latter. I think I've gone a bit numbers-mad.
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • Had dinner with an old friend last night - he picked up the bill and then I bought coffee and cake, which was nice of him and I'll have to owe him for next time.

    We talked about money, in fact - he let slip that his self-employed wife's business was slow at the moment and he was keeping them afloat (in the context of explaining why he didn't leave a job he hates), and that things were a bit tight. They're both in their early 60s, and there are holes in their house that need fixing, and as long as I've known him he's carried significant credit card debt and a hefty mortgage. He earns roughly double what I made in my best year ever, and yet.

    He'd say he's chosen to enjoy life, and it's true that he travels overseas and things when I don't. But also he has a house full of books and DVDs and CDs that he doesn't have the time to enjoy, and he's out 5 nights a week at pubs and restaurants, which is great but - he's in his early 60s, in a job he hates, unable to set up as self employed which is what he'd be best at, and I don't think a miracle is coming down the track to change any of that.

    I love him to bits, and I don't think my choices are morally better than his, but I am very grateful that I have always chosen a bit of frugality now in order to buy freedom of choice.

    When DH and I met, he worked in a high paid industry with some very dubious moral practices, and I was a junior in a high paid industry with some very long hour requirements and a lot of Keeping Up With The Jones behaviours. We both downshifted. We sometimes catch up with friends in those industries, and they earn, conservatively, 2-3 times what we do each. But I'm so glad we didn't lock ourselves into the high debt high spending cycle that would have stopped us getting out. We have dinner together every night, and we grow vegetables on the weekends, and I think by the time we're in our fifties we can consider going to part time work.

    All of that sounds very smug, and I don't really mean it like that. We've spent our lives not having fancy holidays or buying much stuff, and sometimes it's good to remind myself what the end goal is. Eyes on the prize.
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
    First Anniversary First Post
    Forumite
    Hi armchairexpert, just enjoyed reading your diary and will follow along with your journey. I'm in a similar (less sunny) position of having my mum in my BTL property. My downside is the tax is changing in the UK so that the mortgage payments won't be tax deductible any more. Similarly we know it would be cheaper if she lived with us (not right now as we don't have a spare room, house is for sale); but like you I think our own space is preferable!

    Are you going to share adorable chick pics?
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
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